Illustrator

Hello, dekeIstrators! I wanted to make a special appearance to share something with those of you who are veteran users of Adobe Illustrator, this special Illustrator history lesson from our good friend Mordy Golding. Mordy has a new series over at lynda.com that is designed expressly for Illustrator "insiders" who may just feel like changes in the software have passed them by. In this video---a free excerpt from Mordy's first installment of said series, Illustrator Insider Training: Rethinking the Essentials---Mordy gives a terrific explanation of some of the reasons you may have missed significant improvements in the way Illustrator works. Bottom line: It's not you! It's not your throwing back too many martinis! It's not your stubborn adherence to old school practices! It's just that a paradigmatic shift happened in the software whilst you understandably may not have been listening. You are off the hook! And meanwhile, Mordy has (count 'em) three installments of this terrific series to help tried-and-true Illustrator experts get the most from recent developments without having to go back to square one. (Of course, if you need square one, there is Deke's new Up and Running with Illustrator course.)

So, if you already have a lynda.com subscription, you get Mordy as part of the deal. And if not, might I suggest signing up for a free 7-day trial at lynda.com/deke. Illustrator gurus, coming at you from all directions. You're welcome! (And nice to see you.)  Read more » 

Every once in a while, I go on a creative bender. I'm not proud of it; it's just the way I'm built. Yesterday (and a bit of this morning), my artistic tonic of choice was the obscure 19th-century art of the ambigram. (Update: Click the previous sentence to see the video, now live on lynda.com.) You know, those words that read the same way regardless of how you rotate the page. For example, here's my name. Turn it upside-down and it's still my name. Damn, I have a long name.

An ambigram can also be a piece of art that reads as one word one way and becomes another when turned upside-down. For example, can you guess what this word looks like when spun 180 degrees?

If you guessed "cat vomit," you're wrong. Here's the correct answer: Read more » 

Over the last 12 months, I've recorded approximately 144 hours of video training on Adobe's CS5 applications. That's 12 courses in all, and enough video to consume 18 days of your life if you did nothing but watch me 8 hours a day. (Please don't do that, however. I don't want to be responsible for the consequences!)

And yet I've covered only Photoshop, Photoshop Extended, and Illustrator. Which means I've ignored InDesign, a program about which I wrote the first book (InDesign for Dummies), recorded the first video course (Total Training for InDesign 1.5), and have unfailingly supported ever since.

Except for CS5. No book, no video. Despite the fact that one-time InDesign product manager, Michael Ninness, dubbed CS5's Track Changes the "Deke and Colleen feature," I still missed it.

Until now! July 7 saw my return to my beloved page-layout program, Up and Running with InDesign. This 2-hour 31-minute video course does just what it promises by getting you up and running with InDesign in the shortest amount of time possible.

Here's the official description: Read more »